One interesting thing from this was that the FBI couldn't trace him via the Tor network until they had his physical location. Good for Tor, glad to see they are still anonymous.
If I had been him, I'd have put Tor on top of a couple of vpses in some select countries around the world.
That being said, he was reckless and too ideological without considering he wouldn't be furthering his ideals. Its one thing to dump company secrets, its another to dump personal CCs.
Now if I was the FBI, I'd be trying to combine the successful methods of having undercover agents pose as terrorists with a hacker bent. Its the same sort of system, albeit purely digital.
"...the FBI couldn't trace him via the Tor network..."
I honestly think they already knew who he was from his comments - by reviewing Sabu's chat logs they found he had slipped up and identified himself.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, we have no data either way. Tor may be secure, or it may not.
Take-aways seem to be:
1. IRC logs do not contain identifying info - unless you reveal youself
2. IRC active / away status leaks information about your schedule
3. Using multiple identities online works pretty well
4. Trusting criminals = fail
5. Committing federal crimes = fail
The FBI had a pretty solid case against him. By the time they were doing the IP sniffing and identifying Tor nodes, they already had the guy under 24/7 surveillance. It sounds like they were solidifying their case.
If this were hollywood, I bet he would have sensed the surveillance somehow - and tried to make a run for it. But it didn't sound like he had many friends who would have hidden him.
IRC logs do not contain identifying info - unless you reveal youself
You'd be surprised. I was about six years old when I realized I could tell who was walking upstairs by the sound of their footsteps.
I can identify code that my co-workers have written by their individual styles. And that's after conforming to our coding standard.
It's common knowledge that individual (prose) writing style can be as identifiable as a fingerprint.
In short, pretty much every action you take has the potential of adding to a list of identifying information about you. If your actions are watched long enough, you will be identified.
If they _could_ track via tor, I highly doubt they'd tip their hand in such an obvious way. They'd use their tor-tracking abilities to get a suspect, then use this prior knowledge to assist with ordinary evidence-gathering. Or even not use it at all unless the intelligence gained was valuable enough to risk losing that source of information.
If I had been him, I'd have put Tor on top of a couple of vpses in some select countries around the world.
That being said, he was reckless and too ideological without considering he wouldn't be furthering his ideals. Its one thing to dump company secrets, its another to dump personal CCs.
Now if I was the FBI, I'd be trying to combine the successful methods of having undercover agents pose as terrorists with a hacker bent. Its the same sort of system, albeit purely digital.